Edgar Online

EDGAR Online is an online subscription service (http://www.edgar-online.com) used to access a database of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) public filings. For a fee, investor relations and corporate public relations officers can gather financial information on their company and on similar, competitive companies using the EDGAR database. EDGAR Online, Inc. is listed on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (NASDAQ) under the symbol EDGR. Subscriptions are paid on a monthly or quarterly basis, and usage is limited to a certain number of documents per term, with an additional fee for each additional document accessed. The database may be searched by filing type, date of filing, company name, or person name. Though EDGAR Online is not affiliated with the SEC, it serves as a carrier of information from the SEC to the consumer.

EDGAR stands for Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval. The SEC mandates that all publicly traded companies must file their annual, quarterly, and current reports, along with reports on stock sales among company executives (Form 144), with the SEC for review and public dissemination. The typical annual (10-K) or quarterly (10-Q) report includes financial statements, messages from the company's leadership, and information regarding company performance and future plans. Current reports (8-K) partially fulfill material disclosure requirements; they usually include press releases of updated information regarding changes of management, mergers, or acquisitions.

The EDGAR live filing system began on July 15, 1992. Originally documents were sent to the SEC by diskette or magnetic tape. With the introduction of computers, files could be sent via modem. They are now transmitted over the Internet via high-speed lines (T1 or ISDN) or FTP servers directly to the SEC. In 2001 the SEC began accepting transmissions of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) files, which show photos, graphics, and formatting. The documents that are filed with the SEC are later publicly disseminated through services such as EDGAR Online. Subscribers to EDGAR Online may be stockbrokers, analysts, shareholders, investment bankers, or others interested in timely information pertaining to public companies. This subscription service, in addition to providing access to public company filings, offers international public company reports, normalized financial data for company comparisons, financial news, initial public offering (IPO) alerts, stock quotes, charts, and investor relations services. EDGAR Online also presents a full range of hosting, intranet, and Application Programming Interface solutions to bring public company filings onto company Web sites and news sites.

In addition, EDGAR Online offers a free service, Free EDGAR, which can be found at http://www.freeedgar.com. Users of Free EDGAR must register with the site by supplying name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and occupation. Free EDGAR offers only the most basic access to filings and is meant for use by individuals. Only one free file can be viewed per day, but additional filings can be viewed for a fee. The one-filing-a-day limit allows EDGAR Online to offer a public service while answering the demand for its subscription service by professionals and serious stock researchers.